Monday, July 25, 2005

Decline and Fall of Conservatism

Apologies for the lack of posts. Between certain personal obligations and the blistering heatwave rolling across the United States, it's been very hard to think, let alone make coherent comments about anything.

Butler Shaffer of LewRockwell.com doesn't have that problem . Indeed, he continues to write amazing philosophical essays. His latest, "The Decline and Fall of Conservatism," explains how a once-great philosophy of individual liberty, property rights and society-over-state degenerated into a totalitarian institution that tramples liberty, destroys property and elevates state above all.

I really shouldn't quote from the article, as taking anything out of context would be doing it injury; but there is a metaphor I cannot resist mentioning:

"...when the Soviet Union collapsed, conservatives were left without a raison d’être. Their very existence, as a political movement, ceased to be. They had accumulated weapons and powers – along with an army of defense contractors eager to keep the game going – but no "enemy." Conservatives – and, I should add, so-called "liberals" – were like a man with a leash, desperately in search of a dog."